Night fell. I looked for a word like mine, a word to lean upon, a word to sustain me. And it seemed to me that I was going along groping my way as if… - Henri Barbusse

الجدار القائم بذاته

مقفِراً وصلباً

كأنما استعار روح الجبل المجاور.

اللوحةُ في وسطه لا تقول إلا حيرتَها،

أمام غزارة هذا الفراغ

الجدار بمزاجه الدمويّ

لا تغيّره الألوان

ولا تلك البنفسجات المفكرّة في الأصيص

والكؤوس المرتّبة بنظافة على الرفوف.

الجدار المحروس بعناية الوحشة

And he continued to travesty the truth, and I was impotent — the truth, that profound thing whose voice was in my ears, whose shadow was in my eyes, and whose taste was in my mouth. Was I so utterly forsaken? Would no one speak the word I was in search of?

Hidden behind the horizons, living men unite with machines and fall furiously on space. They do not see their shots. They do not know what they are doing. "You shall not know; you shall not know." But since the cannonade is returning, they will be fighting here again. All these battles spring from themselves and necessitate each other to infinity! One single battle is not enough, it is not complete, there is no satisfaction. Nothing is finished, nothing is ever finished. Ah, it is only men who die! No one understands the greatness of things, and I know well that I do not understand all the horror in which I am.